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Passing Judgment on “Fenway Bark”

I’ve learned to accept the high cost of living. I’ve learned to live with the condo-ization, and with it the fact that I’ll probably never be able to afford to buy a house in Southie, at least not anytime soon. I can handle the Blackberrying yuppies, even when they walk in acting like they own the place, and I’m close to being able to contain my anger when someone asks me to say “park the car in Harvard Yard” in my own neighborhood and then laughs in my face. I don’t even mind that the parking situation seems to get more horrible every year, because Southie is still Southie, and God help us, so it will always be. But if Southie is really going to hang onto its culture, we have to draw the line somewhere. I’m drawing it here: Fenway Bark.

Fenway Bark is a planned upscale hotel for dogs. It offers “luxury boxes” that are equipped with television, webcams, sliding glass doors, and anti-microbial grass. Said boxes overlook an indoor yard and a pool. They offer massage therapy and “holistic food and treats.” The pitch on their website reads,

The parent will be offered a one stop solution for grooming, supplies, quality pet food, training, photography, and rehabilitation with access hours and location that are convenient for the urban professional.

Full disclosure: I am the only one among the SSS bloggers who has never owned a dog. As a result of knowing the Drizzle’s dog (the half-Haitian one), I have lost a fair amount of sympathy for the species. For that reason, and because it doesn’t exactly exist yet, I’m stopping just short of putting Fenway Bark on the Shit List. This isn’t really about dogs, anyway. This is about identity.

Everyone has their different preferences, and far be it from me to pass judgment, but seriously? You’re trying to build an upscale dog hotel around the corner from Murphy’s Law?

At what point does a luxury purchase cross the absurdity line? Some people buy imported ice made from Scottish spring water for their Scotch. Where’s the extra utility you’re getting from spending all that extra money? Those people do that kind of thing for status. Lavishing HDTV, massage therapy, and organic food on an animal that spends a lot of its time licking the empty sack where its testicles used to be is a status purchase. Of course there’s a demand for it – because some people would flush C-notes down the toilet if it made them look cool – but not here. Don’t do it here.

This Boston Herald article indicates that Southie – as well as the BRA (Boston Redevelopment Authority, for those of you who don’t know) – is pretty dead-set against this, which is good. That means that people still respect the values of reasonable skepticism, pragmatic thinking, and respect for your neighbors that we were all raised on, rather than the imported-Scotch-water way of thinking.

I sort of feel bad that the woman who is trying to start this business invested $80,000 of her own money in it instead of, say, taking out a small business loan – not sure about the situation there – but, like I said, sometimes the axe has to drop on things like this. What’s next? A new Ritz-Carlton on L Street? Hot stone therapy at the Bathhouse? Six hundred-dollar plates of whale sushi for sale on West Broadway? Southie isn’t Beverly Hills. Broadway isn’t 5th Avenue. This has got to stop.

Absolutely moronic! If some lady wants to renovate an empty warehouse and create a dog care business on 1st St. across the street from a factory why does it matter to you? It’s an empty warehouse………. do you get it? Why does anyone care what happens inside her 4 walls besides her customers? Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to patronize the business. If you manage to extract your head from your colon and take a look around you’ll figure why she wants to locate here. 1. The dogs are here. 2. The yuppies with blackberries are here. 3. The ready cash to splurge on the dogs is here. 4. The location is ideal for Logan Airport, Black Falcon cruise ship terminal and the convention center. The old Southie you remember is not coming back. This is a done deal, move on.

To answer your question, yes, I do “get it.” I still think it’s ludicrous. And move on to where? I’m not going anywhere.

Buddy, the “old Southie” and “new Southie” B.S. that you’re spouting is what you have to get over. It’s an illusion that realtors made up so frightened suburbanites can feel comfortable living in the Lower End. Unfortunately for this lady a ridiculous idea is a ridiculous idea regardless of where you have it.

This Fenway Bark broad stopped me as I was walking my asshole dog along pleasure bay last year. She asked me if I would be interested in taking my dog to a doggy spa. I drunkenly retorted, “No.” I told her that Dewberry Dogs and South Boston Animal Hospital have been gouging my family’s pet income for years, and that I would be very interested in an affordable place to take my asshole dog. She responded with, “So you’d be interested in a luxury kennel instead? With indoor playgrounds?” I repeated my previous statement, lit up a cigarette, and walked away disgusted.

Douche Bag Yuppie with an Over-bred Puppy: You may be more of an asshole than my asshole dog. There still is an old Southie, and I have the deviated septum to prove it. You just don’t know where it is, because your head is up your coffee enema ass. Go down to L&8th for a beer, you’ll find the old Southie waiting to shuffle you back to the under-renovated apartment you call a condo, you douche bag asshole.

Please say it isn’t so. You have GOT to be kidding. Luxury hotel for DOGS? I totally agree with you, the Staker. I moved out of the South End because it got to the point where there were far more goods and services for dogs than people, and now I see the same thing slowly but surely starting to happen in Southeie. Don’t me wrong, I love pets but I think something very odd happened to people during the past 5 or 10 years to the point where dogs are now considered “humans.” Dogs are not humans. They do not need sweaters, booties, baked-goods, massages, organic food, – and certainly not “luxury hotels! I am suspicious of and stay clear of any person who tells me their dog is a human, or that they love dogs better than people – -BIG warning flag! I find the opening of Bark Place to be an embarrasment to the city when there are so many working-class, struggling people in Southie and many of Boston’s other neighborhoods who have never, and will never stay at a “luxury hotel” in their lifetime. People……….we are in dire economic times. Where are our priorities? What’s next – – restaurants for dogs?

[…] I’m not exactly versed in the ways of the political machine. I made it that way. I don’t give a shit who spent three hours on a Tuesday debating the “plusses and deltas” of a committee that needs an extended budget to come up with new questions for the state ethics exam. If the money wasn’t spent on that, it would be spent on trying to prevent me from getting my quarterly dime-bag, or trying to kill Camel fuckers (relax…I’m talking about Big Tobacco). The truth is, however, that I have shaken hands with the “big three” candidates, and have had (sometimes painful) conversations with each of them. This makes me an undisputed expert in the ways of all things electoral. Live with it, guy who complained about “Fenway Bark!” […]

I think it needs to be stated that having dogs/pets IS a luxury and what it costs to feed and care for your animals is considered disposable income. With that said, don’t own a dog if you don’t have disposable income to burn through.

Second, I’m not sure what a deviated septum has to do with any part of this topic but I agree the idea is completely garish. There is a market in the Common Wealth for this industry and where there is a demand… A supply will be created.

Fenway Bark has some pretty big connections in this city. For instance, their attorney makes very generous donations every year to the Mayor. Rumor has it that the contracting company is in bed with the Mayor as well. Maybe it’s time for you local yokles to quite your bitching and TAKE ACTION! Big Industry has big money… and they aim to make bigger money. A few profane blogs and a pointless lawsuit will only buy you some time! GET OFF THE SOAP BOX.

Having an air conditioner is a luxury as well, but it doesn’t have to cost $1,500 per unit. Yes, one should have a built-in income with which to set aside for a beloved (or in my case, asshole) pet. However, my fair douche nozzle, one does not really need their dog to get a top coat on their pedicure, nor do they need a web cam so you can watch them lick their asshole in a luxury pet condo/kennel. You don’t need to make six figures to have a dog, Half Haitian Dog hates avocado masks anyway.

The point of this post is not to complain about the absurdity of over-priced luxury pet spas, but more-so to point out the lack of practicality involved with the surrounding community. We do not need another hotel or condo board, let alone more over-priced real estate for pets. I don’t give a shit who their lawyer is, and I sure as hell don’t care about who has ties to Menino. If Menino wasn’t helping his buddies launder money through flipping leined property, and actually helped small businesses (not dedicated towards giving my dog a colonic) there wouldn’t be a need for this post.

And to answer your question, Alanis, the deviated septum came from Coke-Head Kenny and his steel toed friends who bludgeoned my face because I stepped on his foot in a bar (a beating not seen since the ATF raided Billy-Out-The-Window’s house). Re-read my previous comment and you will hopefully understand the aside.

In short, these profane, local yocal blogs are not an attempt to curtail the yuppie revolution, but merely a platform for which to voice an opinion. Southie is one bad bus ride away from scaring said generous benefactors right out of the neighborhood, and sending them on to the next low-income community project (you said something about making bigger money?). Even you, you, you ought to know that the well runs dry at some point.

So no, I will not “QUITE” my gripes about the “COMMON WEALTH.” So if you haven’t heard a bitter “Southie” say it already, GET OFF YOUR SOAP BOX TOO and lay off mah nuts, biatch.

[…] pays off here on The Shack, and the amount of heat we’ve received for his March 11th post, Passing Judgment on Fenway Bark, has lead us to make new enemeies of Zeltsonic proportions (mainly because his post is number 6 […]